Iran, Iraq in fresh talks in Tehran to discuss energy arrears
Iranian and Iraqi officials have held a second round of high-profile talks in Tehran to settle issues surrounding arrears Iraq owes Iran for vital energy supplies.
An Iraqi delegation comprising of the country’s ministers of electricity, finance and a top banker attended the meeting in the headquarters of the Iranian Oil Ministry on Saturday, according to a report by the ministry’s news website Shana.
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian were present in the meeting, said the report, which added that talks were focused on how Iraq could repatriate billion of dollars worth of Iranian funds now held in the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) because of US sanctions on Tehran.
The delegation visits Tehran for a second time in less than a month to pursue the case of unpaid energy debts as Iraqis become more wary about a potential electricity crisis in their country over the upcoming summer in case Iran decides to cut natural gas supplies used in the Iraqi power plants.
Ardakanin said after the meeting on Saturday that Iraq’s TBI would process payments worth $125 million from Iranian funds held in the bank to a Swiss lender for supplies of more than 16 million doses of coronavirus vaccines ordered by Iran under an international scheme.
“It is expected that administrative work is completed until the end of this working week (Thursday) and these vaccines will soon be available to the Iranian health ministry,” said Ardakanian.
Iraq’s minister of finance Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi later told his Iranian counterpart Farhad Dejpassand in a separate meeting that Tehran and Baghdad had agreed on a timetable for repatriation of the Iranian funds from the TBI, according to a report by IRNA.
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